


The Body in the Vestry

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV), Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Genre: Agatha Christie - Freeform, Crossover, English garden, F/M, Murder Mystery, Tea, curate, more an inspired by, no detective appears, that will remain unsolved, what's the latest excuse for Henry in his shirtsleeves?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28193394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Emma knew she would write all about it to her dear friend Mary who'd gone back to Manchester after they left Roedean, but there were certain details she might perhaps leave out...
Relationships: Emma Green & Henry Hopkins, Emma Green & Jane Green
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4
Collections: Mercy Street Crossover Advent Silver and AU





	The Body in the Vestry

**Author's Note:**

> Bow howdy, another title I invented!
> 
> Emma's Miss Daphne Everlost is inspired by Algernon Moncrieff's friend Bunbury in The Importance of Being Earnest which I highly recommend watching if you haven't.

The body had been found in the vestry, which smelt quite strongly of mothballs and silver polish, of autumn leaves trodden underfoot, even in the height of summer. The constable had been called in and had made a great deal of noise and left an even greater deal of mess, which fell to Mrs. Greenacres and her daughters, though Alice scuttled off quick as she could; she’d come on her bicycle and Emma should have suspected her sister’s plan because Alice had made no secret of her belief that riding a bicycle was unflattering and that she’d rather be caught dead than have Lord Fairfax’s curly-haired son Tom come across her peddling madly. Emma had helped with what poor grace she could muster, wishing she might have claimed a sick headache, a letter she must write to her friend Lady Daphne Everlost, a most helpful friend she’d invented during the years she’d been sent to what she was expected to refer to as dear old Roedean. Instead, she’d scrubbed the floor and ruined her nails and wished, with all her heart, that there was somewhere else she could go—a trip on the Orient Express, a sojourn to Egypt’s mysterious deserts, a nightclub in London, all flash and sparkle and gin. Her mother had left her behind to finish up putting the place to rights, as if Emma paid much attention to wear the vestments were hung. At least she’d get to walk home alone, however she chose. If that meant she walked by the curate’s cottage, who could fault her?

Mr. Hopkins was to be found in one of two places: the chapel or his garden. As Emma had come from the vestry, she was confident of finding him with a pair of secateurs in his hands, diligent among his peonies. She was not disappointed, not in the least. There he was, young Hopkins as Lord Fairfax called him, though he was thirty if he was a day, according to her sister Alice. There he was, Mr. Hopkins who only gave the sermon when Rev. Summers was indisposed, which was more often than one might have anticipated, given how weak the tavern’s ale was. He’d taken off his suit jacket, an indeterminate shade that conveyed the solemnity of his position as well as his meager stipend, and had hung it jauntily on the stake of a trellis covering with climbing roses and was hard at work—in his shirtsleeves. Almost, for he’d rolled up the white sleeves to his elbows and his forearms were bare. Emma caught her breath, feeling as though she’d seen what she oughtn’t, but what she had most, terribly, desired.

“Oh my heavens!” he exclaimed when she took a step back, stupidly thinking to escape his notice with her dark hair bundled away beneath a scarlet scarf Alice had discarded as too gaudy. “Good day to you, Miss Greenacres!” he called out.

“Hallo, Mr. Hopkins,” she answered because she must or be thought rude and ill-bred, knowing her cheeks were flushing as red as the silk scarf tied round her head..

“I say, Miss Greenacres, would you care for a cup of tea? I can’t seem to convince Mrs. Brannan to lay a smaller tea for one simple curate. She’s sure to have prepared a fresh pot, crumpets, lemon curd and two different kind of tea-bread,” he said. “You’d be doing me the greatest favor, for I think I shall do something simply unforgivable—”

“What?” Emma cried out, thinking of the dead man’s staring eyes, the awful crookedness of his broken neck on the vestry’s flagstones, of Alice’s sharp, startled scream when she’d come upon him.

“I should start to curse these benighted peonies-- and what should the people of Mercyhaven say then, if they hear their curate has such wickedness in him?” he said. “Do say you’ll stop and have a cup of tea.”

One cup, she thought. That wouldn’t mean very much and soon enough, no one would be speaking of anything but the dead man in the vestry and no one would mind that Miss Emma Jessamine Greenacres had spent a quarter of an hour with the curate in his snug parlor with the scent of roses and peonies coming through the open window.

“Only a cup,” she said as he walked over to the garden gate to unlatch it with one hand, his blue eyes bright. “Then I must fly—Mother expects me at home.”


End file.
